By: Ana Hribar / Nova24tv.si
“Well, strictly speaking, the left structure does not exist in our country, because what is understood as the ‘left’ is exactly the structure that privatised in the 1990s. If it did not privatise, it would understand that the problems of workers, women, precarious workers, the weakest or excluded were the result of their privatisation and therefore it would not even call itself that,” said psychoanalyst and pioneer of Lacanian psychoanalysis Nina Krajnik who was a guest on the RTV Slovenia’s show Intervju with Dr Jože Možina. Among other things, she pointed out that the so-called “cliques of the deep state exist in all systems and work even against the state, which we have witnessed in the last two years, when important steps have been taken to resolve these issues”.
Nina Krajnik, who is also the founder of the Slovenian Society for Lacanian Psychoanalysis and the only Slovenian member of the World Psychoanalytic Association, holds a doctorate in philosophy and recently wrote a book on the history of psychoanalysis in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. In the show, the host Dr Jože Možina and her spoke about Lacanian psychoanalysis and other topics embedded in the Slovene political system, and above all touched on the left, which contradicts its definition based on privatisation and economic power.
On her way, Nina Krajnik collided with the centres of power, which tried to disable her. This happened a few years ago, when she returned to Slovenia after 12 years and experienced great obstacles from ZRC SAZU and “a circle known in Slovenia as theoretical psychoanalysis and a wider range of centres of power, I also mean Gregor Golobič”, Krajnik explained, adding that it was mainly a collision with the main ideological apparatus of this country, higher education. She also mentioned non-governmental organisations, which she interprets as a problem in the sense that they present themselves as independent, but in reality, they addictively usurp an area at the expense of taxpayers for their private goals. The line of bearers of the deep state goes from old levers of power to small tyrants through quasi-state institutions. She drew attention to Gregor Golobič and his relationship with Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, and others. “This is the clique that privatised one of the main ideological mechanisms of the state. And these are public universities, higher education. The forensic trace of this is public money,” she said.
We read Lacan in Slovenia with censorship
The host and her touched on the fact that Lacan is mostly left-wing in Slovenia and that it is a left-wing domain, with Krajnik explaining that Jacques Lacan was “declared against the left, and during left-wing tendencies he voted for de Gaulle in France”. According to Krajnik, this connotation, which was established in Slovenia in connection with Lacan, is more connected to Yugoslav socialism and numerous manipulations and interpretations. Krajnik claims that in Slovenia we read Lacan with censorship, explaining that all his translations into Slovene were translated without copyright, which the authors did not receive precisely because of the translation modification, exclusion of certain paragraphs, and rearrangement.
Psychoanalysis was banned by law in Yugoslavia, and not only was it ideologically banned, but it was labelled a Jewish practice, Krajnik said, explaining that psychoanalysis as a theory and reading was allowed, while psychoanalysts were banned. According to the psychoanalyst’s theory, the deep state is “something that is on the surface and its mechanism is economically strong, but above all it is strong in terms of ideology”, and these cliques, as she called them, are found in all systems, from media, public universities, education, “there is no system in Slovenia where these cliques would not exist and the state is not a problem either, as these cliques also work against the state. We have witnessed this in the last two years, when important steps have been taken to open or solve this problem in some way.”
“Ideology is a kind of cellophane that covers the structural core that protects it, and that is the privatisation of social property, which in this sense is the greatest evil of a democratic state, as it has re-established inequality,” Krajnik said.
What is understood as “left” is precisely the structure that privatised in the 1990s
According to Krajnik, the privatisation of social property carried out by the so-called left is a crime, as it is the reason for the social inequality we are witnessing today. No understanding of the symptoms of today’s society can ignore the original inequality caused by this privatisation. If we are witnessing political violence today, it is because privatisation was already a violent process at the time. Of course, we can say that the roots of this go even further. However, in the 1990s, a paradigm shift took place, a new system emerged, and here the question arose, which is a lever of deep state ideology, namely: “How to privatise and remain a leftist, which is at odds with the ideology of the left, because the left does not exist in capitalism. This is precisely the issue they have been dealing with and are still dealing with today, i.e., how to carry out economic privatisation and remain a leftist”, said Krajnik and concluded that the answers are cultural Marxism and anti-Janša ideology.
Which leads to the conclusion that the left in Slovenia does not exist according to the mentioned facts, and the so-called left is called “left privatisers of social property”. After the intellectually interesting and dynamic 1980s, these groups began to carry out not only economic but also cultural privatisation. The usurpation of higher education, cultural institutions, major galleries, newspapers, departments at public universities started happening.
“Well, strictly speaking, the left structure does not exist in our country, because what is understood as the ‘left’ is precisely the structure that privatised in the 1990s. If it had not privatised, it would have understood that the problems of workers, women, precarious workers, the weakest or the excluded are the result of precisely this privatisation of theirs, and therefore it would not even call itself that.” According to Krajnik, in Slovenia we are fixed on the idea that the left is something good and fair and the outcome of the elections is one of these delusions in Slovenia, given the election results and “actions of the government, which worked in extremely impossible conditions but achieved extremely top results”.
Golob is a “leftist who privatises”
“The name Robert Golob is the answer of transitional social property privatisers. A leftist who privatises,” the psychoanalyst is convinced. The host further wonders why there is so much “hatred” against Janez Janša, when he did so much at the time of Slovenia’s independence and what, in Krajnik’s opinion, is the reason for this anti-Janša and anti-Janša reflex in Slovenia, which is extremely present. The philosopher is convinced that Janša is a threat to this transitional privatisation, as it threatens the core of what the political scene has been building for decades and “what makes Slovenia democratic, in the sense that no one is particularly privileged, that is what it accuses Janša of, and of course every mechanism of not looking under one’s fingers needs this kind of figure.” The host and the guest agree that this shows above all the culture of the totalitarian regime.
When the father’s name falls, people become disoriented, as in the last election
Politics is about dialogue and non-cooperation is highly non-political, non-cooperation leads to exclusion and Slovenia is based on exclusion, said Krajnik, adding that all this is happening so that those who exclude themselves can preserve this continent and preserve the totalitarian element. According to the host, all these centres of power in Slovenia, including the media, say something, but act in the opposite way, raising the question of how this can happen in a democracy when the media should prevail with the truth. And Krajnik is convinced that people have a hard time accepting the truth and it is easier to follow the media, whether it is true or not. “Once the name of the father falls, evil appears, people start wandering disorientedly, which we also saw in the last elections. People can vote for the same structural figure many times, they always understand later that it was a mistake, and they will always repeat that mistake,” the guest explained, adding that Slovenia lacks the ethics of the singular and the ethics of respecting the truth of others. For if this is not the case, then social ties do not exist but only hatred towards someone who is different.
Krajnik is happy that despite many staged fights, there are still real struggles and that there are still people who are connecting. She is convinced that all academic, cultural, or ideological manipulations will eventually be shattered in the face of the truth, and so those who, in her opinion, have witnessed too many times in Slovenia.
Nina Krajnik studied at the University of Paris VIII – Vincennes Saint Denis. She was a researcher and fellow of the James Joyce Swiss Foundation in Zurich. She has worked on humanitarian projects in Iceland, Ireland and Portugal, Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. She is a Doctor of Philosophy who has dedicated her work to the relationship between neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and symptoms in technological times. She was the first Slovene to form a clinical formation within the famous École de la cause freudienne and at the Sainte Anne Hospital in France. She is the founder and president of the Slovenian Society for Lacanian Psychoanalysis. She is also the originator of the Lacanian orientation in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, where she runs her own psychoanalytic school. She deals in particular with issues of trauma from the period of war and transition. She translates from French, Spanish, English, and Serbian.